1. POLICY, FINANCING AND SUPPORT FOR COMMUNITY FOOD HUBS: CURRENT DIRECTIONS, OPTIONS AND FUTURE POSSIBILITIES

2. Knowledge Experience Capacity Bravery Philanthropy’s role
To begin, I just want to give a quick over view of how Philanthropy can play a part in creating healthy and sustainable food systems.
Knowledge – Good grantingmaking is informed by a combination of academic and field expertise, internal and external research, and robust community engagement.
Experience –We learn from the successes and failures of the projects we fund in order to maximise the impact of our future grantmaking.
Capacity – we have the resources to facilitate change through research or the development of projects that address existing and future problems.
Bravery – we have the independence to fund new and innovative approaches to address contemporary issues facing the community.

3. Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation
Education & Employment
Healthy & Cohesive Communities
Homelessness & Affordable Housing
Sustainable Melbourne
Supporting the transition to a low carbon economy
Protecting healthy water ecosystems
Building a sustainable food system
Lord Mayor’s Charitable Foundation is Australia’s largest Community Foundation. Established in 1923, we have a long history of serving the community through Philanthropy, addressing prominent issues. In 2016, the Foundation’s focus is on creating positive and sustained social impact. We achieve this through a combination of research, grantmaking, and community engagement.
We divide our Grants Program into four key Impact Areas, which are responsive to current and emerging social issues: Education & Employment; Healthy & Cohesive Communities; Homelessness & Affordable Housing; and the Impact Area I will expand on today, Sustainable Melbourne. Within this Impact Area, we aim to support the transition to a low carbon economy, protect our water ecosystems, and build sustainable food systems.

4. Impact Areas & Community Initiatives
Homelessness, Housing & Disadvantage
Impact Areas
Increasing Life Opportunities
Community Health & Wellbeing
Community Initiatives
Addressing Youth Unemployment
Affordable Housing
Food Security
Older Women Ageing in Poverty
Sustainable Melbourne
Inspiring Philanthropy
Community Needs
Analysis
External Impact Areas
Internal Impact Areas
In addition to the Sustainable Melbourne Impact Area, we also have a Food Security Community Initiative. This was introduced in 2013, in recognition of its emergence as an area of growing concern.
The Food Security Initiative is made up of two distinct elements: 1) Addressing food insecurity and community food programs; and 2) Support for Urban Agriculture and Community Education on Sustainable Food Systems. As you can see, supporting, creating, and maintaining sustainable food systems is a high priority for the Foundation.

5. Current Grant Types Exploration Innovation Thrive Eldon & Anne Foote
Donor Advised Fund
These are the Foundation’s current Grant Types.
Exploration Grants aim to provide charitable organisations with the opportunity to test or pilot new ideas, undertake research, or support the initial development of a social enterprise.
Our Innovation Grants are designed to fund creative approaches to tackling social and environmental issues.
Thrive Grants are designed to boost the capacity of organisations with an annual revenue of $5 million or less to meet their mission.
The Foundation also manage the Eldon & Anne Foote Donor Advised Fund, which provides grants to charitable organisations across Australia.

6. Ways we have addressed Food Security
Direct Aid
Feed Melbourne Appeal
Research
Foodprint Melbourne
Social Enterprise Development
SecondBite’s ‘Ugly Juice Truck’
Urban Agriculture
‘Grow It Local Melbourne’
Here are some examples of how the Foundation has been addressing the overall issue of food security over the past few years:
Feed Melbourne Appeal – over the past six years, the Foundation has granted over $1.2 million to community food programs across Greater Melbourne to help them continue to collect, store, cook, and distribute food to people in need.
Foodprint Melbourne – a two year collaborative research project undertaken by the Victorian Eco Innovation Lab at the University of Melbourne, which analyses Melbourne’s food consumption, and cataloguing what produce is being grown in Melbourne’s Foodbowl, as well as the current and future vulnerabilities in Melbourne’s food supply due to urban sprawl and climate change.
The Foundation is a supporter of Social Traders’ ‘The Crunch’ social enterprise development program, through funding the ‘Food Security’ place, of which SecondBite developed their ‘Ugly Juice Truck’ start-up, which sells juices made from imperfect fruit and vegetables.
The Foundation has also supported Sustainable Living Foundation’s ‘Grow It Local Melbourne’ for the past two years, which brings people together and encourages them to grow fresh produce at home to reduce their carbon footprint and become engaged with sustainable eating.

7. We also fund Community Food Hubs!
Why do we support Community Food Hubs?
Access for all
Environmentally sustainable
Food waste reduction
Social cohesion
Employment opportunities
Community Food Hubs really appeal to us for a number of reasons. We recognise the important role that they play in ensuring all members of the community have access to healthy, environmentally sustainable, and locally grown fresh produce.
We also see community food hubs as a fantastic way of not only connecting the community with where their food has come from, but also with those who produce it. Food Hubs also ensure the continuation of food production within Greater Melbourne, and the subsequent employment and local economic development opportunities, all of which strongly align with the Foundation’s mission to create positive and lasting social change.

8. Connecting & Replicating Food Hubs across Australia
What we have done so far
Connecting & Replicating Food Hubs across Australia
Logistical collaboration between Food Hubs and Farmers
Our first grant in this area was made through the Eldon & Anne Foote Donor Advised Grants Program in 2013/2014 for an ambitious and exciting plan to replicate and connect new Food Hubs across Australia as a way of revitalising local food economies.
Open Food Foundation collaborated with Australian Food Hubs Network to streamline resources and processes, and enable new technology to establish and manage Food Hubs. When this grant was first presented to us, Open Food Foundation had just begun testing a new software tool that had the capability to transform how Victorian Food Hubs were communicating with each other. We saw a lot of potential in this project to revolutionise the way Food Hubs interact and share knowledge. The project resulted in the establishment of a number of new Food Hubs across several States.
In 2014, we provided a second grant to Open Food Foundation to further develop the Open Food Network platform used in the previously funded project. The platform provides an online Marketplace for local food, and tools to make it easier to set up and run Food Hubs. The project also explored the barriers faced by Food Hubs and local food producers in relation to transport capacity and infrastructure.

9. Grants Program Manager
What’s next?
Endorsed as a Tax Concession Charity (TCC) 
Endorsed as a Deductible Gift Recipient (DGR) as covered by Item 1 of the table in section of the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997
Kerryn Jones
Grants Program Manager
We would love to build on our past support of Community Food Hubs within our Grants Program.
To be eligible to apply for a grant from LMCF, organisations need to be endorsed as a Tax Concession Charity, and as a Deductible Gift Recipient as covered by Item 1. We are always excited to hear about new community food projects, so please feel free to contact me if you would like to have a chat!